A Biden-appointed federal judge just wrote the opinion that gun control advocates have been dreading for years. On Friday, the full Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down New Jersey's ban on semiautomatic rifles and magazines holding more than 10 rounds, declaring both unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. The NRA, which has been litigating this exact case since 2018, is absolutely beside itself with joy.
What the Court Actually Did
This was not a narrow, technical ruling. The Third Circuit, sitting en banc, meaning every judge on the court hearing the case together, went well beyond what the lower court had decided. Fox News reports the ruling struck down New Jersey's restrictions not just on AR-15s specifically, but on the entire class of semiautomatic rifles covered under the state's so-called assault-firearms law.
The court also reversed the lower court's decision upholding New Jersey's ban on magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds. Both gone. All of it.
New Jersey passed its assault-firearms law in 1990, in the wake of a California elementary school shooting. The governor at the time called the banned weapons 'guns capable of wholesale destruction' that were 'designed to wipe out the greatest number of people in the shortest possible time.' The Third Circuit looked at all of that and said: still not enough to overcome the Second Amendment. The state failed to show its restrictions are consistent with America's historical tradition of firearm regulation, which is now the legal test courts have to apply.
The Part That Will Make Your Head Spin
Here is the detail that is going to live rent-free in a lot of people's heads: the majority opinion was written by U.S. Circuit Judge Arianna Freeman. A Biden appointee. According to Fox News, Freeman applied the framework set out by the Supreme Court in Heller, Bruen, and subsequent cases, concluded New Jersey hadn't met its burden, and wrote the opinion that ends eight years of NRA litigation with a complete victory for the gun-rights organization.
This is not some wild Trump judge going rogue. This is the legal framework the Supreme Court has built, operating exactly as designed. Judges appointed by Democrats are now reaching the same destination as judges appointed by Republicans, because the doctrine itself has shifted so dramatically that it is pulling everyone along with it whether they like it or not.
Several judges did dissent. They argued, not unreasonably, that the banned firearms are unusually dangerous military-style weapons, that states have long had authority to regulate them, and that this ruling contradicts every other federal appeals court that has upheld similar restrictions. That last point matters. A lot. This conflict between circuits is precisely the kind of thing that gets the Supreme Court's attention.
The NRA's Eight-Year Patience Finally Pays Off
Justin Davis, the NRA's managing director of public affairs, told Fox News Digital: 'This is an NRA case that we've been litigating since 2018, so it's a monumental win.' That is an understatement delivered with the calm of someone who just cashed a very large check.
The NRA issued a full statement calling this 'a historic victory for the NRA, the Second Amendment, and law-abiding Americans,' and declared it 'another benchmark in our efforts to dismantle gun control across the country.' They are not hiding the ball about what comes next. Dismantle gun control across the country. That is the stated goal, said plainly and out loud, and they are currently winning.
What makes this particularly significant is the scope. This ruling covers millions of New Jersey gun owners and strikes at restrictions that have been on the books for 35 years. And if it survives appeal, it does not stay in New Jersey.
Where This Goes From Here
New Jersey is not going to accept this quietly. The state will almost certainly appeal, and given that this ruling explicitly conflicts with other federal appeals courts that have upheld similar bans, there is a real argument that the Supreme Court will have to step in and resolve the contradiction.
That is either a reassuring or a terrifying prospect, depending entirely on how you feel about a Supreme Court that already gave us Bruen, which is the decision that created the historical-tradition test that just killed New Jersey's law. The conservative supermajority on the Court designed this framework. They are unlikely to use an appeal here as an opportunity to walk it back.
Meanwhile, the DOJ under Trump has already been suing Denver over its own assault weapons ban, as Fox News has reported separately. The federal government and the federal courts are now pulling in the same direction on guns, hard and fast. States that have built their gun safety frameworks over decades are watching them get dismantled piece by piece.
The Dingo Take
Let's be honest about what is happening here. This is not a one-off. This is a coordinated, decades-long legal strategy by the gun-rights movement reaching full maturity at exactly the moment the Supreme Court gave it the tools it needed to win. The Bruen decision handed challengers a framework almost perfectly designed to strike down modern gun regulations, because it asks courts to find 18th-century analogues for 21st-century problems. Assault-weapons bans enacted in 1990 after children were massacred at school? Find me the Founding-era equivalent or it's gone. That is the test. New Jersey couldn't pass it.
The dissenting judges in this case made the obvious point: every other federal appeals court that has looked at similar bans has upheld them. That is not a small thing. That is a massive legal split that the Supreme Court now has every reason to resolve, and resolve it will, with a bench that has already shown exactly where it stands on these questions.
Gun control advocates spent years focused on winning elections and passing laws. The gun-rights movement spent those same years focused on winning courts and changing doctrine. One of those strategies turned out to matter more. New Jersey's 35-year-old law just proved it.
